Updated Date: Dec. 22nd, 2008

KMDC Year End Dinner successfully held on December 12th 2008

KMDC Year End Dinner was successful held on Dec 12th, 2008 at the World Trade Centre Club Hong Kong. Over 50 KMDC individual members and corporate members and guests joined us and enjoyed a wonderful sharing by Mr. Steven Yau, VP and CIO of Wal-Mart China, on the recent KM activities in the global retail organization. KMDC also announced the new executive committee, led by New Chairman Mr. Eric Chan. We would like to thank Mr. Steven Yau for his wonderful presentation. We look forward to another year of exciting KM activities at KMDC in 2009. Happy New Year everyone!

Another wonderful news is the arrival of the new family member, an 8 pound 5 oz Curtis Liang, to our newly elected Vice-Chairman, Michael Liang. Congratulations to Michael and his family.

Updated Date: Nov. 26th, 2008

KMDC Year End Dinner on Friday December 12th 2008

The Knowledge Management Development Centre, Ltd (KMDC) would like to host a forum for our members to connect with friends, to mingle with fellow members, and to share among ourselves our latest development, both professionally and personally.

The Executive Committee of KMDC is inviting all of you to join the Year End Dinner Event to be held on Friday December 12, 2008.

Following the KMDC's long and acclaimed tradition, we are pleased to announce that we have the honor of having Mr. Steven Yau, Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Wal-Mart (China) Investment Co Ltd as our event speaker. The topic of his presentation is:

It is our greatest gratitude in having Mr. Yau to share with us his vision and application on knowledge Management. Don't miss this exciting opportunity and grab your seat today!

Please click here to view the dinner details and registration from. For the renewing member or new member registering, please be reminded that the registration form and the bank-in slip should be sent to us on or before December 10, 2008.

Should you have any queries or need further information, please feel free to contact us at 8101-5632.

Updated Date: Nov. 25th, 2008

Asia Pacific Knowledge Management Conference

"The 10th Asia Pacific Knowledge Management conference- Managing Knowledge for Sustainable Growth: Searching for Business Models for the Future" will be held on 4 Dec, 08. The updated programme and registration form can be found here.

Times of economic crises are often times of innovation. Join us to catch up with the latest ideas and developments on managing in a knowledge-based economy. Service innovation, collaborative networks, communication in real and virtual business environments, as well as creating new business from existing knowledge are some of this year's topics.

Posted Date: Aug. 11st, 2008

KMDC Vice-Chairman invited as Guest Speaker at the annual Customer Relationship Excellence (CRE) Summit

Mr Eric Chan, KMDC Vice-chairman, one of the keynote speakers, spoke in the annual Customer Relationship Excellence (CRE) & Customer Service Quality Standard (CSQS) Summit on June 26-27, 2008. The summit was held by our partner organization, Pacific Customer Service Consortium (APCSC). This is a regional conference for members and leading companies to exhibit and showcase Customer Service and CRM related best practices, success stories, and technologies. The goal of the Summit is to provide an International Platform for effective knowledge sharing and exemplary customer success leadership and show case for world-class service quality and Customer Relationship Excellence.

Posted Date: Apr. 18th, 2008

2008 Spring Dinner successfully held on April. 11th, 2008

Over 60 KMDC individual members and corporate members and guests joined us at the KMDC Spring Dinner held on April 11th, 2008 at the World Trade Centre Club Hong Kong. The Spring Dinner event is an annual tradition of KMDC and it offers an opportunity for our KM community to meet new friends, re-connect and strengthen ties with the old acquaintances. Mr. Gregg Tate, Vice President of Human Resources and Knowledge Management - adidas Group in Region Asia Pacific, gave our audience a lively and exciting talk on the topic, ‘adidas Group, Region Asia-Pacific: Every marathon begins with the first stride’. The sharing was very well received by the audience and led to different discussions and collaborations across the dining hall. All the guests and members actively engaged in networking with each other during the cocktail and dinner time. We would like to thank Mr. Gregg Tate and his team for their wonderful presentation. Thanks to all new and old KMDC members who joined the event and we look forward to another year of exciting KM activities at KMDC.

Download the presentation file here.

Updated Date: Mar. 31st, 2008

KMDC Annual Spring Dinner on April 11th 2008

All men by nature desire knowledge.” Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC)

Many organizations nowadays have recognized the differences between information and knowledge. Improvement of operation efficiency demands not only information but knowledge! KMDC is a charitable organization with a mission is to promote the awareness and advancement of the practice of Knowledge Management in Hong Kong.

We are opened to any individual or corporate who has an interest in the KM discipline or even simply would like to know more on KM. With our upcoming Spring Dinner event, it is the best time to sign up as a member and get acquaintance with our existing members at our dinner event.

The 2008 KMDC Spring Dinner will be held on Friday April 11, 2008. The Spring Dinner event is a tradition of KMDC. It offers an opportunity for the KM community to meet new friends and re-connect and strengthen ties with the old acquaintances.

We are honor to have Mr. Gregg Tate, Vice President of Human Resources and Knowledge Management for the adidas Group in Region Asia Pacific, to be our speaker in the dinner. Mr. Tate will give us a talk on the topic, ‘adidas Group, Region Asia-Pacific: Every marathon begins with the first stride’. He will share the thoughts, strategy and drive behind adidas Group’s decision to venture into the discipline of Knowledge Management in late 2006.

Simply fill in the form attached below and follow the procedure to register as a member. How much are dues? The equivalent of less than one Starbucks coffee a week or the cost of a movie a month. Once as a member, you will have the privilege to participate in many events organized by KMDC at a discount rate. Most of all, you will become part of a community of KM elites.

Download Spring Dinner Registration Form

Download KMDC Membership Form

I look forward to seeing you.

Yours faithfully,

Daisy Chou

Chairlady, Knowledge Management Development Centre, Limited

Updated Date: Mar. 27th, 2008

KMDC held KM Measurement Roundtable on March 25th 2008

A roundtable discussion on the important but controversial topic on KM Measurement was successfully conducted on 25th March. Our Vice Chairman Mr. Eric Chan acted as the session facilitator for the night. Participants were very active in contributing their views and opinions on appropriate KM measurements at different stage of KM maturity and the ultimate linkages of such measurement to overall company business and KPIs. A summary of the insights developed on the night, with appropriate deletion of sensitive company specific information, will be available for sharing within KMDC members very soon. More roundtables and more informal Knowledge Cafe will be coming........Stay tuned..........

Updated Date: Feb. 20th, 2008

KMDC EXCO Member's KM Article Published on Shenzhen Quality Journal

An article titled “Compendious Discussion on the Relationship between Knowledge Management and Service Quality” by KMDC EXCO Member Dr. Victor Leung was published in a Shenzhen Quality Journal <特區品質> earlier this year. Logon to the KMDC Member System to read the article under section: KMDC/Document Library/Member Area/Reading Corner. You can also check out the website of the Journal here.

Updated Date: Dec. 18th, 2007

KMDC Dinner Gathering Event at Hong Kong Polytechnic University

** Download Presentation File **

Seasonal greetings from KMDC Executive Committee!

Before we are taking a holiday break, you are invited to attend our last sharing session of the year and a dinner gathering on Dec 13 (Thu) at Four Seas Restaurant, 14/F, Li Ka Shing Tower, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

On the night, Prof. Tsui, after attending KM seminars in Singapore, Japan and Australia, would share his insights on the development and activities of Knowledge Management around Asia Pacific. After that, we will have dinner to catch up KM activities among us and find out what kind of support you would like us to provide in the coming year.

It would be a wonderful evening to learn something from the experts and to socialize with other KM practitioners and professionals.

Please download the Registration form for details. If you wish to join the event, please fill the registration form and fax it to 8102-5632 to reserve a seat. See you there.

Updated Date: Oct. 27th, 2007

KMDC Seminar "How to formulate an effective KM strategy"

** Download Presentation File **

A well formulated KM strategy can answer the basic question: what values will KM deliver for my organization? It clarifies the ‘whys and the whats’, and guides the choice of KM initiatives, which direct the ‘hows”. How to develop a KM strategy? The speaker, Dr Philip Fung, will introduce a strategy development process based on the Australian KM Standard, AS 5037. Published by Standards Australia (a standard setting body in Australia) in 2003, this standard helps managers to understand the concepts of knowledge management and develop practical initiatives. Case studies from Australia and Hong Kong will be used to illustrate the methodology involved.

SPEAKER: Dr. Philip Fung
Dr. Fung is an experienced KM manager and has led KM initiatives in Hong Kong public listed companies from 1999 to 2005. He is currently an independent KM consultant and KM adviser to several social welfare organizations. Previously, he was the Director of Human Resources and KM for Bossini International Limited, and the General Manager (TQM and HR) of Group Sense Limited.

Posted Date: Jun. 11th, 2007

KMDC Seminar "The Power of E-learning in Knowledge Intensive Organization'"

** Download Registration Form **

There are over 1,950,000 records if you search eLearning and Knowledge Management on Yahoo. It tells us that a lot of people find these 2 areas are related and try to figure out the importance of them in an organization. In many eLearning consulting projects, there are queries on how to maximize the benefit of the implementation of e-learning system and knowledge management system. In this sharing session, cases will be shared on how the organizations implement their e-learning systems with the strategic focus on information collection and knowledge dissemination to their staff systematically and effectively.

SPEAKER: Mr. Arthur Cheung, Senior Consultant, HKPC
Mr. Arthur Cheung is the team head of the New Media team of Hong Kong Productivity Council, targeting to develop and promote multimedia and digital entertainment industry in Hong Kong. He acts as a Multimedia Consultant and Project Manager in designing, development and implementation of various projects in the capacity of e-learning, application development, promotion & marketing, technology transfer and training. One of his main responsibilities is to act as the e-learning Consultant and Project leader in designing, development and implementation of various e-learning projects with major corporations, e.g. KCRC, Housing Authority, Swire Beverage Group, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank and various departments of HKSAR. With over 10 years of solid experience in various aspects of multimedia services, he has maintained equilibrium between state-of-art technology and visual communication.
In 2005, the team developed the fist-of-its-kind e-board flash game engine, Learning management system and Content management system for e-learning development. The engines employ harness popular and affordable technologies to build a function-rich yet easy-to-use engine for developers who are novice to IT development. The resulting benefits are shorter development cycle, cheaper cost and lower technology barrier for non-IT professionals in developing e-broad game with question pool facilities and content updating capability.

Posted Date: Jun. 9th, 2007

KMDC supports KM Asia 2007

KM Asia 2007 - Enhancing knowledge culture and discovering new possibilities, will be held on 29-31 October 2007 at the International Convention & Exhibition Centre, Suntec Singapore. KM Asia 2007 will provide opportunities to find out advances in KM practice and gain up to date information on current trends and methodologies, realise how enhanced CM practice can boost your overall KM strategy, and hear keynote addresses delivered by prominent members of the KM community. KMDC is one of the supporting organizations and all KMDC members receives a 15% discount for the event. Download the Registration Form here.

Posted Date: Apr. 3rd, 2007

2007 Spring Dinner Celebration and Networking successfully held on Mar. 28th, 2007

About 50 KMDC individual members and corporate members (both current and new), guests and sponsors showed up at the KMDC Spring Dinner function held on March 28, 2007. “What you know is Who you know”’, Daisy Chou, KMDC Chairlady quoted in her welcoming speech. “While networking is vital for successful managers, many of them focus on developing their operational network, and sometimes overlook their personal and strategic networks which usually happen outside their workplace.” Daisy further proclaimed, “the Spring Dinner provides a perfect opportunity for managers and leaders to broaden and enhance their personal and strategic networks.”

All the guests and members enjoyed this socialization opportunity and they actively engaged in networking with each other during the cocktail and dinner time. The participants were also much impressed by the presentation from Mr Joseph Koc, Director of Marketing of Jardine OneSolution, who shared his company’s KM journey and the lesson learnt with the community. At the end of the Spring Dinner, every guest and member took home not only his/her satisfied stomach, but also prizes, new knowledge, new friendship and useful network links

Posted Date: Nov. 24th, 2006

Big discount offer for the KMDC member on the Region's Largest Knowledge Management Conference!

The 3rd Asia-Pacific International Conference on Knowledge Management (KMAP2006) will be held in Hong Kong from 12th to 15th December, 2006. The conference is jointly organized by the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Department of Information Systems of City University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Knowledge Management Society. There will be 2 one-day conference on December 12th and 13th and follow with 8 half-day workshops on December 14th and 15th.

The Day 1 of the Conference features renowned keynote speakers who will explore multi-dimensional issues in Knowledge Management (KM), namely collaboration and societal issues, knowledge discovery through data mining and taxonomy, and tapping into intangible assets. The keynote speeches will be followed by a forum to address the management issues and the assessment of intellectual capital. Facilitated by an expert, a knowledge cafe will be held in an open space area where participants can exchange views in a socially relaxed environment.

As a supporting organization, KMDC member will entitle 50% discount on the Day 1 Conference, ie $1150 only. As a KM practitioner, you are highly recommended to attend Day 1 Conference so to meet many KM experts and guru coming from all over the world. In order to take the discount offer, you could join as a KMDC member now! Your membership will be valid until end of 2007. As a KMDC member, besides getting a big saving on this Conference, you will have other benefits from KMDC such as free or discount seminar session, organized by us. Once become our member, you could register the conference at the discount rate. Please complete the KMDC Membership Form and send it to us, along with the annual membership payment of HK$500 before December 6, 2006.

As for Day 2 conference and workshop, you may also entitle at least 10% discount as a KMDC member. For conference and workshops details, you may visit the web site: http://www.ise.polyu.edu.hk/kmap2006.You can download the registration form from the site.

If you are already KMDC member, you also need to complete a Member Declaration Form in order to entitle the discount offer. Please send the registration form, declaration form and the payment directly to the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

If you have any enquires about the Conference, please contact please Miss Dora Chong at 2766-6583 or dora.chong@polyu.edu.hk .

Look forward to seeing you in this big event!

Posted Date: Oct. 18th, 2006

KMDC Seminar "Customer Experience Blueprint to Maximize Customer Value" and "Do we really understand our customers? "

I. Customer Experience Blueprint to Maximize Customer Value

** Download Presentation Slide **

Customers make many snap and repetitive purchase decisions with the brands that engage with their memory as a result of the product and service experience appealing to their senses, heart, and mind. Therefore, to cultivate customers into advocates and to maximize customer value, your company needs to create and implement an integrated customer experience strategy that drives values to customers via the customer touch-points and channels in the value creation process. This seminar aims to raise the awareness of participants of the need of shaping customer experience and share how the customer experience strategy can be developed and implemented to enhance total customer experience.

SPEAKER: Mr. Vincent Tse, MBA, MSoc.Sc, BSc(Eng)
Mr Tse is a Senior Consultant of Total Enterprise Management Consultancy Division, with more than 16 years of process & quality management consultancy, customer service management consultancy and industrial experience. He has provided diversified service assessment, quality management and process improvement consultancy services for leading organizations in both public and commercial sectors. He was also responsible for the assessment operation of renowned service recognition schemes and customer service award schemes in Hong Kong.

II. Do we really understand our customers? (Customer Knowledge Management - novelty on Knowledge Management)

** Download Presentation Slide **

Organizations may consider that they understand their customer needs well. However, they may only know their customers but not understand them. The speaker will use a recent incident of a transport company to demonstrate the lack of the understanding of the customer knowledge and introducing the importance of customer tactic knowledge. Tools on leverage the customer knowledge and how to capture this vital knowledge will be discussed.

SPEAKER: Dr. Victor Leung
Victor is the Exco Member of the Knowledge Management Development Centre. He is currently the Marketing Manager of a public transport organization in Hong Kong. His commitment in knowledge management , especially the study of customer knowledge management, makes him being speaker of various conferences and being an active participant in various knowledge management activities both in Hong Kong and overseas countries

Posted Date: Sep. 03rd, 2006

KMDC Joint Seminar with International Association of Project and Program Management (IAPPM) successfully held on Aug. 30th, 2006

We would like to thank Mr. Bobby Ho and Mr. Trevor Lui for their wonderful presentations. Thanks for all the members and guests who joined us for the seminar.

Posted Date: Aug. 24th, 2006

KM Postgraduate Diploma Program: "Top Up" opportunity for KM Diploma Alumni

Good News for KM Diploma Alumni! Past students can now apply for the "Top Up" program to upgrade their KM Diploma to the new KM Postgraduate Diploma. Please contact Ms. Yvonne Cheng at 8103-5632 for details. Limited space still available for the KM Postgraduate Diploma Program. Register today! For more information, please visit http://www.kmdiploma.com.

Make yourself a standout by joining the worldwide community of KM pioneers!

Knowledge Management Development Centre Ltd. (KMDC) is organizing the 5th intake of the Knowledge Management Diploma Program this year in partnership with Centre for Information Technology in Education, (CITE) the University of Hong Kong. The program begins on 16 September 2006. The objective of this Program is to present a comprehensive view on Knowledge Management from both practitioner and academic perspectives. Two of our programs, the Postgraduate Diploma and Certificate programs, have successful granted ARTICULATION WITH two Master Degree Programs* offered by The University of Hong Kong - Faculty of Education. Registration begins in early July 2006. For more information, visit http://www.kmdiploma.com or KMDC at +852 8101 5632/email at info@kmdc.org.

Posted Date: Aug. 23rd, 2006

KM ASIA 2006

Knowledge Management Asia is the regions leading knowledge and collaboration event. One of the largest in the world, for over five years this event has brought together over 700 participants to discuss, debate and analyse the latest developments in the field of managing knowledge. With its market making reputation it attracts the best and the brightest minds and a host of dynamic Fortune 500 companies, globally admired organisations and past MAKE (Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise) Award winners. This year's event will focus on the management of knowledge as part of overall business strategy combined with practice. It will examine in detail the economic benefits of knowledge and how it can be incorporated within your business strategy to effectively enhance your organisations performance.

As one of the supporting partners for the event "KM Asia 2006", Knowledge Management Development Centre offers its members and those referred by us a 15% discount off the regular fee for joining the event. Please state that you are the KMDC member on the registration form. Please visit www.kmasia.com for all details and registration.

Posted Date: Aug. 10th, 2006

KM Postgraduate Diploma Program Launched

Centre for Information Technology in Education, (CITE) the University of Hong Kong and Knowledge Management Development Centre Ltd. (KMDC) jointly launched the 5th intake of the Knowledge Management Diploma Program on Monday July 31st, 2006 at the HK Police Senior Officers' Mess. Guests and members have an enjoyable and informative evening with sharing from Alumni and organizers. We'd like to thank CITE Director Dr. Nancy Law, Speakers Mr. Charles Wong, Mr. Stanleny Yeung and Ms. Beatrice Ng, as well as KMDC's Chairlady Ms. Daisy Chou for their fruitful sharing.. For more information about KM Diploma, visit http://www.kmdiploma.com or KMDC at +852 8103 5632/email at diploma@kmdc.org.

Posted Date: Aug. 8th, 2006

KMDC Joint Seminar with International Association of Project and Program Management (IAPPM) Using KM to improve Project Management Office's efficiency

Project Management Office (PMO) is well-known as the centre of excellence of big corporations to set-up, standardize and maintain the in-house best practices for managing multiple projects. In addition, it is also a pool of management knowledge as well as the home for project quality benchmarking. In this workshop, the speaker would like to share with you the knowledge creation, maintenance and dissemination of project knowledge, and the how to make use of the knowledge management to create efficiencies and effectiveness of a PMO to add values to the project portfolio.

SPEAKER: Mr. Bobby Ho
A Business Manager equipped with more than 10 years of diversified working experience in IT; e-Commerce; Project Management; Supply Chain and Logistics. Numerous awards and professional recognition have been bestowed upon Mr. Bobby Ho by many well-known honor and/or professional societies, such as MBA; MPhil; MA; BEng; UKAS (MSP); PRINCE2 RP; Certified holder of IT Project+, COMPTIA; CPM; PMPR; CABM; C Eng; CFE; CISM; CISA; CISSP.

Case Sharing: The role of KM in Business Process Improvements

Business Process Improvement (BPI) has been widely used for years as an effective strategy to reduce costs, shorten cycle times, improve quality, and increase user satisfaction in many areas of businesses. While more organizations are starting BPI or BPR projects to improve business operations, not many has noticed how process improvement initiatives can help an organization in managing their knowledge more effectively. The speaker will share how KM is used in different business process improvement initiatives in Hong Kong.

SPEAKER: Mr. Trevor Lui, Executive Committee Member, KMDC
Mr. Trevor Lui has over 18 years of experience in business development and marketing. In the past 8 years, he has worked as a consultant to provide consultancy services in marketing, management and business development. With his current role in Hong Kong Productivity Council, he has provided consultancy services and conducted training on knowledge management, benchmarking, and customer relationship management. Mr. Trevor Lui and Asian Benchmarking Clearinghouse (ABC) have attained a very high reputation for knowledge management, benchmarking and customer relationship management.

Posted Date: Jul. 6th, 2006

We would like to thank Mrs. Nancy Ling and Mr. Philip Fung for their informative and interesting presentation. Thanks for all the members and guests who joined us for the seminar.

Download Mr. Philip Fung's Presentation Here

Posted Date: Jun. 7th, 2006

Posted Date: May 27th, 2006

Posted Date: May 3rd, 2006

Members please Login to the KMDC Member System for the Presentation File (Knowledge Library/Document Library/Project Area/Activity/2006-06-30 Seminar)

Posted Date: Mar. 28th, 2006

Posted Date: Mar. 17th, 2006

We would like to thank Dr. Sammy Sou and Ms. Charlotte Tsui for the wonderful presentation. Thanks for joining us!

Members please Login to the KMDC Member System for the Presentation File (Knowledge Library/Document Library/Project Area/Activity/2006-03-15 Seminar)

Near Miss+ is a small error which happened but causing no harm or minor harm. The knowledge of it is worth capturing for prevention of its progress to a severe incident in future. The talk will brief on the "Near Miss Project" and the actions to involve staff of all levels to volunteer to report their knowledge on 'Near Miss+'.

SPEAKER: Dr. Sammy Sou

Dr. Sou worked in hospital management, achieving various hospital awards like Good People Management Award (consecutive years) by the Government of the Hong Kong SAR, Excellence In Training by the Hong Kong Management Association, Hong Kong Productivity Award of the Hong Kong Productivity Council, and Asian Hospital Management Award as finalist. His special interest in Knowledge Management and Risk Management led him to the ‘Near Miss+’ Project with government funding and co-operation of ten public hospitals and private hospitals.

Posted Date: Feb. 27th, 2006

Spring is a time for new beginnings, for re-connecting and strengthening ties. The Executive Committee invited all KMDC members to attend the Spring Dinner held on February 22 in Tao Heung Restaurant. About 45 guests and members participated this festive event. The guests and members had a wonderful evening with sumptuous food, good friends, fun gifts and a presentation on 'innovative learning solutions', given by Mr Kelvin Fung, VP of Cyberwisdom.net. Cyberwisdom.net and Mr Paul Cheng, Deputy CEO of Tao Heung Holdings, had made the evening more memorable by sponsoring the event. Member could log in for more pictures and presentation materials.

Posted Date: Feb. 22nd, 2006

Near Miss+ is a small error which happened but causing no harm or minor harm. The knowledge of it is worth capturing for prevention of its progress to a severe incident in future. The talk will brief on the "Near Miss Project" and the actions to involve staff of all levels to volunteer to report their knowledge on 'Near Miss+'.

SPEAKER: Dr. Sammy Sou
Dr. Sou worked in hospital management, achieving various hospital awards like Good People Management Award (consecutive years) by the Government of the Hong Kong SAR, Excellence In Training by the Hong Kong Management Association, Hong Kong Productivity Award of the Hong Kong Productivity Council, and Asian Hospital Management Award as finalist. His special interest in Knowledge Management and Risk Management led him to the ‘Near Miss+’ Project with government funding and co-operation of ten public hospitals and private hospitals.

Posted Date: Dec. 15th, 2005

A Tribute to Peter Drucker (1909-2005) Contributed by Mr. Eric Chan, KMDC Executive Committee Member "The world knows he was the greatest management thinker of the last century" - Jack Welch, former CEO of General Motors, the company much influenced by Peter Drucker "Business was just a starting point from which he had this platform to influence leaders of all different kind" - Rick Warren, the famous writer on soul searching spiritual books

Mr. Peter F. Drucker, the man who invented Management as some people referred to, passed away on Nov 11, 2005 at the age of 95 peacefully in his sleep at his Los Angeles home. Peter Drucker was the first person to use the term "knowledge worker" almost 40 years ago and predicted that knowledge workers would be the key driving force of economic development in the 21 st century before anybody talked about Knowledge Management. Here are some of the highlights on his key contributions to the field of "Management knowledge" (and indirectly Knowledge Management) as our tribute to this modern management guru.

Peter F. Drucker was born into a highly educated professional family in Vienna, Austria on Nov 19, 1909. His father was an economist and lawyer , and his mother was a medical doctor. At the age of 18, Peter went to Germany to study law at Hamburg University. Two years later, he joined Frankfurt's largest daily newspaper as financial writer and his first story was on "the stock market crash". Subsequently he published pamphlets that offended the Nazis and the pamphlets were banned and burned. In 1937, Peter married Doris Schmitz and moved to US as a correspondent for British newspaper s. He published his first book "The End of Economic Man: The Origins of Totalitarianism" which became a favorite of then UK's Prime Minister Winston Churchchill. His major contribution to management theory started when he published his book "Concept of the Corporation" – a landmark study of General Motors and the book introduced decentralization as a principle of organi zation.

Peter Drucker's tenure in the academic field started in 1950 when he joined New York University as a management professor. In 1954, his famous book "The Practice of Management " asked the questions on: what is our business, who is our customer, and what does he consider value? To this day, modern management still talked about value creation as the fundamental success factor of any company. In 1966, the highly regarded book "The Effective Executive" told managers to focus workload to avoid "wasting time" on non-essential matters – a long head start on the principle of "First things first" as described later in Stephen Covey's 7 habits series.

In 1971, Peter left New York University to teach at Claremont Graduate School in California and the school is now renamed after him. From 1975 onwards, he started a 20-year tenure as a monthly columnist for the Wall Street Journal. His insightful question to Jack Welch in 1981 led to GE's cornerstone strategy to becoming No. 1 or No. 2 in every business she should operate in. In 1984, he argued controversially that a CEO should make no more than 20 times the salary of the lowest paid worker. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George Bush in 2002. Before he died in 2005, he published 38 books translated into 37 languages.

A few of many timeless ideas drawn from Peter Drucker's lifetime work are :

Leadership : Think and say "We" instead of "I" since authority is given to leaders only because they have the trust of the organization. They should put the needs and opportunities of an organization before their own needs.

Organization : We human tend to close out the outside, but effective organization exist not to satisfy herself but to fill a customer need – the only reason why company exist. Leaders have the responsibilities to steer an organization market focused (outside-in) in a way that continually transform business processes within a company.

Work : Every good employee should focus on opportunities rather than problems or issues. Problem solving prevents damage, but exploiting opportunities produces results. Unless there is a crisis, problems shouldn't even be discussed at management meetings until opportunities have been analyzed and dealt with. Change should be viewed as opportunity instead of threat.

Decision Making : Every decision is risky and it is a commitment of present known resources to an uncertain and unknown future. All we need to do to minimize risk if to know when a decision is necessary, how to define a problem and tackle it and make compromises if necessary in the end. You haven't made a decision until you have found a way to implement it.

Human Resource Management : Attracting and retaining talents have become two of the central tasks of management. Knowledge workers have many options and should be treated as volunteers. They are interested in personal achievement and personal responsibility. They expect continuous learning and training. They want respect and authority. Give it to them.

Posted Date: Oct. 29th, 2005

SPEAKER: Ms. Beatrice Ng, Assistant Manager of Corporate Communication and Administration Department, Tao Heung Holding Limited
Ms. Ng, a graduate of the KM Diploma Programme 2004/05, is responsible for managing all communication channels of Tao Heung, as well as the administrative works. Being in charge of the two departments, she grasps the information flow within the company which enables the opportunities for promoting KM practice in the company.

Posted Date: Sept. 21st, 2005

KMDC is proud to present to you a special Master's Forum event on the evening of Oct. 7th, 2005. Walter Vieira, author of 'The Winning Manager', brings you a 'helicopter view' to Knowledge Management. He looks at the many situations in different client companies over the last ten years–and identifies how they used, or did not use the basic concept of Knowledge Management, and how they paid a heavy price for a lack of emphasis on KM in the organization.

Over a 2-hour session Walter Vieira will share:

• How Knowledge Management has evolved as a business; with examples of how various companies around us are doing this–right from the Economist to many many others.
• The old knowledge management–reactive ; and the new Knowledge Management–proactive.
• How a large management consultancy had to close down–and a large engineering company lost business.
• The high cost of not managing Knowledge.
• Creating a culture of Knowledge Management–by going beyond Knowledge Management to a secure, vibrant organization culture.

About the Speaker Walter Vieira, Past Chairman of the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI - World Apex Body) is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC); in practice of management consultancy since 1975; and among the first to be elected a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of India (FIMC), in 1995. In 1975, he founded the first marketing consultancy company in India - Marketing Advisory Services. The MAS Group works as consultants to top management in areas of business policy; marketing strategy; top management selection; in-company training; facilitating collaborations; technology transfer; licensing; market research; customer satisfaction surveys and cross-cultural issues. The Group has special skills in global marketing, with a network of management consultants in 14 countries.

Posted Date: Sept. 8th, 2005

Organized by the Ark Group Asia in its 5th year, the KM Asia conference has grown alongside the demands and needs of knowledge practitioners regionally. This year, KM Asia 2005 has taken one step further to address how knowledge management can improve your organisation's competitive edge.

Headlined by three of the world's most admired thought leaders – John Seely Brown, Larry Prusak and Dave Snowden - KM Asia will explore on how KM plays a key role in the areas of innovation, organisational learning and productivity.

Asides from exploring new frontiers in the economics of knowledge or developing sustainable innovative thinking, delegates will also find out how globally admired organisations managed to successfully chart out their new paths with knowledge management as their cornerstone.

As one of the supporting partners for the event "Knowledge Management Asia 2005", Knowledge Management Development Centre offers its members and those referred by us a 15% discount off the regular fee for joining the event. Please state that you are the KMDC member on the registration form. Please visit www.kmasia.com for all details and registration. For more information on early bird discounts, group discounts, and registration details, please call Cher at +65 6325 3169 or Agnes at +65 6325 3168. Alternatively, you can email to sllim@arkgroupasia.com or apng@arkgroupasia.com with the subject header "KM Asia"

News: 2002 to 2005